Every day, I look around and the world seems to move quicker. Events, news, commentary – it all happens on Twitter before BBC or CNN can even edit the tape. But the world isn’t just moving faster, it’s moving in parallel. A colleague of mine told me he keeps a mobile phone and iPad handy when he watches TV – which is on just for sound in the background.

Does your company move this fast? Does your company have a relentless drive...

If you are planning to develop a mobile app, chances are that you will require a backend for storing information, or managing content. These days, there are very few apps that do not require a backend at all. So here are the options for developing a backend:

Custom server

You can set up your own server and host the backend on it. But many developers find it time consuming to set up a dedicated server, assign static IP addresses and manage the server in case things go wrong. The advantage of setting up your own...

There are all kinds of clients out there. There are the ones that don’t want to know and just disengage completely from the project. Others want fine grained control over a providers activity. Some want to get into the code and others like to tweak the front end incessantly.

Weblance is designed to help providers and clients to mesh these working styles into a productive process that deploys apps quickly. In some cases the platform will back clients off to allow providers...

A recent study by Forrester Research has made the case for a single standardised web browser for internet users. The argument for this is that there are hidden costs involved in having multiple non-standardised browsers.

Of the 113 IT professionals who were surveyed, nearly all of them (96%) said they standardise on a single browser for use on work PC’s. Enterprises are now deciding whether to support non-standard browsers as the report suggests it can be costly. According to the firms which offered a multiple...

Simply put, a Content Management System (CMS) is a system for managing content. Unfortunately, this basic definition fails to capture what a successful content management solution entails.

A CMS refers to a Web application that provides a centralised database, allowing for the creation, revision and storage of various content through a predefined interface. Digital content is managed through a combination of rules, specific workflows and processes, which are applied to the content in order to facilitate the effective...

At the end of this article, the reader will understand what MVVM is, why it is useful, and how open source JavaScript frameworks like Knockout can help deliver MVVM applications.

Topics covered in this article:

• What is MVVM

• Benefits of MVVM

• How to implement data binding in a jQuery application using Knockout

What is MVVM?

The Model-View-View Model (MVVM) pattern is a software architectural design pattern. This pattern emerged in 2005 to support the inherent data binding functionality offered by XAML subsystems such as Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Silverlight.

Elements of the Pattern

The three elements or “layers” of the pattern will be described in this section.

Model

The Model encapsulates the domain model, business logic and may include data access.

The domain model represents the client-side application model and may define supporting data structures such as business objects. An example of such structures is a Customer object containing properties such as FirstName, LastName, etc.

Figure 1

Business logic refers to logic concerned with retrieving, validating and ensuring the consistency of application data. This excludes UI-specific logic.

View

The view is the application’s User Interface (UI). It defines the appearance of the UI and its visual elements and controls such as text boxes and buttons. The view may also implement view behaviour such as animations and transitions.

Figure 2 – View Example

View Model

The view model is responsible for holding application state, handling presentation logic and exposing application data and operations (commands) to the view such as LoadCustomers and SaveCustomers. It acts as the intermediary between the view and model. The view model retrieves data from the model and exposes it to the view as properties in a form that the view can easily digest.

Figure 3 – View Model

How all of the these Elements Work Together

Basics

This section will explain the basic sequence of steps involved in a typical MVVM application. Please keep in mind that the order and specific operations of production applications will vary based on application complexity and functionality.

Step 1: View Model Retrieves Data from Model

The view model retrieves data from the model or a data service. It then converts the data into a format that the view can easily display. The converted data is stored within structures of the view model and exposed to the...

Recently I ran into a firm that had no idea what designers do. Yes, they did call themselves designers. Yes, they were offshore hucksters. They did not know the difference between a designer and a front end developer, let alone a PSD technician or website designer. It got me thinking that the only way these people can get away with not knowing their own business is if the market was rich with folks who might be confused on what a website designer does.

I shudder to think about all those folks hiring website designers and they just...

This Brave New World continues to impress us with the sophisticated solutions that help streamline the global innovation process. As the battle for dominance in the smartphone and tablet market becomes tougher, mobile device makers are now focusing on differentiating their products in order to increase profit margins and market share in the lucrative fast growing markets.

As a way to reach this goal, some are currently putting money and efforts into improving design and usability of mobile devices by making...

Alongside the well-publicised App Center Open Graph, which shares app specific actions from users on their Timeline, is one of Facebook’s methods of enabling further app integration within the social network.

Now Facebook is changing things on Open Graph with the aim to give users a better experience.

The first element is modifying the Open Graph stories which appear on a user’s news feed.

The glazed look on some developers’ faces usually emerges on Day 2 of my three-day Objective-C intensive. Having taught several hundred students this programming language, I know this deer-in-the-headlights expression well. It means the developers – aghast, frustrated or worse – realize they simply don’t have a handle on the concepts behind Objective-C.

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